The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, London

US President George W. Bush arrives in Britain Sunday to take afternoon tea with Queen Elizabeth II, hold talks with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and visit Northern Ireland on his farewell European tour.

But his visit is set to be marked by protests from anti-war campaigners unhappy at the reception for the architect of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and police restrictions about where and how they can make their voices heard.

Bush, who has visited Germany, Italy, The Vatican and Slovenia, touches down from Paris, where he met French President Nicolas Sarkozy and set aside previous Franco-US differences over Iraq in a display of backslapping bonhomie.

From Heathrow airport, he and his wife Laura head for nearby Windsor Castle, west of London, to meet the 82-year-old monarch and her husband Prince Philip. US Ambassador to Britain Robert Tuttle will also be present.

They then head for dinner with Brown and his wife, Sarah, amid tight security and a possible stand-off between police and protesters angry at the welcome being given to the man they call the "mass murderer-in-chief".

The Downing Street meeting, which goes into Monday before the pair head to Northern Ireland, is Brown's first meeting as prime minister with Bush on British soil.

Brown went to the US presidential retreat at Camp David outside Washington last July soon after taking over from Bush's close ally Tony Blair to reaffirm transatlantic ties. He also visited the White House in April this year.

Brown said last week that the rising cost of food and fuel due to higher world oil prices would form part of his discussions with Bush, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan, where Britain's presence is still a thorny domestic issue.

In an interview with The Observer newspaper published Sunday, Bush warned Brown that any premature withdrawal of Britain's remaining 4,000 or so troops from southern Iraq could jeopardise coalition gains.

Withdrawal could only be "based upon success", he told the weekly, adding: "Our answer is: there is should be no definitive timetable."

Bush's high-security visit to London in November 2003 saw three full days of protests, with tens of thousands of people marching past Downing Street marshalled by 5,000 police officers.

The Stop the War Coalition, which wants full British withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, is planning vocal protests in London and Windsor, again urging Bush's arrest for war crimes and opposition to US sabre-rattling at Iran.

The group, an affiliation of pacifist, leftist and Muslim organisations, had planned to march the short distance to Downing Street from nearby Parliament Square to mark Bush's arrival at the premier's official residence.

But unlike last time, roads in and around the central London government buildings will be shut. New laws now prevent protests within a one-kilometre (0.6-mile) radius of parliament without prior written police permission.

The group, supported by figures like human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger, writer Harold Pinter and the smaller opposition Liberal Democrat party, have denounced the ban on their march as "unacceptable".

"George Bush has been dictating British foreign policy for many years. Now it appears his security services are determining our rights of protest," said the group's organiser Lindsey German.

"This is a disgrace and we will challenge the ban."

London police deny that the US security services have made any "special requests" for Bush and that the level of security merely reflected his high-profile.